Category: Mind and Spirit

A spaghetti diagram for the goal of getting good sleep
New goals, 5 ways

New goals, 5 ways

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Want to make a New Years resolution but don’t know how to start? I’ve used various methods to beginning new goals, and the one you choose isn’t as important as just getting started, and to stop procrastinating. Here are 5 different ways to start the change engine before January 1st:

1. Tic-tac-toe goal board

Grid with 9 boxes, tic-tac-toe style, with 9 goal categories
Use this format to set goals on the macro level to organize your thoughts. Break a big goal into different categories or steps.

This method works great for categorizing steps to a complex goal, or for working on many goals simultaneously. Draw a tic-tac-toe grid on a piece of paper. Create up to 9 separate goals or categories to work on. Go deeper and add at least 3 steps to each category. This simple board fits a lot of goal meat into one page, and isn’t too overwhelming to create. You can use this organizational structure to track your progress on different facets of wellness throughout the year.

Tic-tac-toe grid with micro goals
Keep using your grid categories throughout the year to make changes on the micro level: your themes can guide your action items. Checking in with your macro goals at regular intervals and creating to-do items each day, week, or month means real progress.

2. One imperative

A spaghetti diagram for the goal of getting good sleep
Work like a mad detective and solve the mystery of attaining your most important goal, by leaving no stone unturned and talking to yourself while writing frantically.

If you are tractor-beaming on a very specific goal, this is a good way to go. Start with a mind map diagram centered on the one thing you want to work on. Brainstorm all the ways this goal touches your life, along with possible ways to make it a reality. Make sure to exhaust your list of associations and leave no idea behind. Show how different components of your actions affect each other. This will give you a map to trying anything and everything possible before even thinking about giving up. After you’ve made your diagram, pick a few change ideas to implement immediately.

3. Dream board

Screen shot of a digital dream board on Pinterest. Pinned pictures include recipes, exercises, and minimalist home decor
Digital or physical dream boards can give you inspiration

Did you ever do this as a kid, where you took a physical bulletin board and pinned up the pictures, notes, and knickknacks that reminded you of your dreams? You can make a physical board or commission a space in your house for displaying ideas and inspirational pieces. Looking at these will help you stay on track and keep your goals at the forefront of your mind.

Dream boards can also be digital. Pin images, webpages, videos, and articles that will motivate and prepare you. The more visual, the better. It’s like a catalog for selling yourself success.

4. Journaling for change

Composition book labeled “top secret secrets, dream diary-ah”

Dedicate a notebook or digital file to making changes in your life for the better. Open the first page and start writing about what you want, where you want to be, and how you might get there. By the end of your first writing session you might have an idea of what to do next.

Commit to checking in with yourself at regular intervals and writing about your progress. When you are feeling stuck or confused go back and read about what you’ve accomplished so far and what mistakes you’ve already made. This reflection gives objective insight into your own life and you can learn from your own experiences.

5. Brand your year

Blue skies, sunshine, a floating balloon. Lighten up!
My 2018 theme is “lighten up!” This brand could mean different things to different people. To me it DOES NOT stand for skin bleaching or huffing helium. It means losing personal baggage, simplifying, and having fun.

Pick a theme for the changes you want to make this year and build your efforts around it. The theme can be a phrase, a song, an object, a single idea, an emotion. Think of the ways you can express this theme in your actions, environment, relationships, and write them down.

Anchor your brand for change by connecting the physical element with the ideological. What you wear, eat, read, watch, and do should  align with the feelings and thoughts you want to cultivate. Set this year apart from the others by giving it an identity—one that you can be proud of.

No matter how you decide to commit to your goals, congrats for being the kind of person who wants to live life to the utmost. Happy New Year and best of luck 🥂.

 

 

Doctor Certificate for Internet Self-Diagnosis
Thanks, Internet! Now I’m a doctor.

Thanks, Internet! Now I’m a doctor.

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So far this year I’ve diagnosed myself with hypothyroidism, magnesium deficiency, muscle wasting, metabolic syndrome, and pyogenic granuloma—just to name a few of the things I’ve been searching the internet for information on.  (Don’t even get me started on the things I am finding wrong with my children!) Googling for internet self-diagnosis can be dangerous in so many ways. A simple symptom can turn quickly into a “terminal diagnosis”, or  can lead to home treatments that aren’t appropriate and can cause more damage. Medical information gleaned from the internet can come from anywhere and anyone, and even if you are an expert to begin with it can be hard to choose the right advice.

Yes, doctors and other providers use internet searches to aid diagnosis. But this happens in conjunction with education and experience, as well as access to professional databases with evidence-based, peer-reviewed research.

People can spend countless hours, as I have, sweating on their couches looking at disturbing tumor photos and reading freak-out forum posts (from other couch doctors) to find out what’s wrong and to attempt at setting the gauge on their worry.

Why are people so attracted to browsing the internet for medical answers in place of visiting or consulting an expert?

“Am I bleeding from my ass or did I just eat too many beets?”—said more people than you would think

What’s wrong with me?

People want instant answers to their nagging questions and may prefer to test the waters of hypochondria from the safety of their own homes.  Discerning what warrants a call, a request for an urgent appointment, or an ER visit can be hard to do on your own.  If you are prone to dramatization it can be easy to feel stupid when calling the doctor in the middle of the night.  I have been told more than once, “Ma’am, this really can wait until your appointment next week.”

Even when you score an appointment you probably have to wait days, weeks, or months.   In an era of instant gratification this can seem like a travesty.  For those who don’t end up coming to the emergency room for everything, including their chapped lips*, a little sleuthing ahead of time can irresistibly lead you down a rabbit hole.

After you have finally seen the provider for 5-15 minutes of their “undivided attention” it may be anticlimactic and you end up with a sense of longing for more information, more direction on what to do, and a realization that no one cares about your health like you do.  Why isn’t anyone else interested in the connection between eating pickles and hair loss?  How has my physical therapist not discovered medical parkour?

Who else has this, and what happened to them?

Humans are social creatures, and the way of the tribe’s medicine woman is pretty much gone.  It has been largely replaced with drive-thru style impersonal cookie cutter medicine (think drop-in urgent care type visits).  We stop in to see someone who probably doesn’t know us very well and receive blanketed advice that has been handed to everyone based on regulatory recommendations and pharmaceutical agendas.

We want to know how the other guy turned out that had similar complaints.  Searching for personal stories and forums can give us audience to the more relatable dramas of others.  We crave that word of mouth advice from people who suffer similarly.  We feel entitled to the secret cures that doctors aren’t taking seriously but people are finding success with.  No one wants to be alone in their struggles, and reaching out into Internetland can abate that loneliness.

What can I do about this right now?

As a society we are impatient.  If it is 1:00 am and we have a rash we want to guess what it is and buy something for it tonight. We desire easy answers and quick solutions we can do at home. I call this “armchair healthcare”, where we would rather complain or pretend like we are making progress while not putting out any real efforts. People skim and choose the remedies that fit their level of motivation, and this gives temporary satisfaction.  It’s part of our conditioning as consumers of healthcare, where special equipment, apps, supplements, and over-the-counter medicinal salves can be purchased 24 hours a day, not interrupting us while we watch YouTube or eat chicken nuggets in our cars.

Should I feel guilty/worried/sorry for myself?

The popular culture pendulum swings between self-blame and victimization, and we’re unsure how we should feel about our ailments.  We want to discern if something is self-inflicted, random, or if we should sue somebody.  The internet helps us decide.  What does this have to do with me and who I am, or who I’ll be?  Maybe it’s all about ME, dammit!

Are there treatments I might have to go through that look painful, expensive, or that result in me being uglier, disfigured, or disabled? I might need to feel guilty about this, so I need to prep.  Either that, or get angry at someone.  Wait, what is the route of transmission? (Maybe I got it from a toilet seat?) Just tell me who I should blame!

Cowgirl's Internet Self-Diagnosis: Dying from secondhand chew
Even cowgirls get the second-hand chew blues

Don’t get me wrong—I do believe the internet is a valuable tool for my health and the health of those around me. It connects us to others, gives us access to helpful information, and lets us find resources quickly. Doing your own research can bolster your knowledge and empower you.  You can find inspiration and ideas and get the honest opinion of 1467 of your closest friends. You may truly be able to captain your wellness ship in ways that were impossible 30 years ago.

However, there is so much information out there that if you read enough you may find contradictory information, your eyes just might glaze over, and you could possibly end up doing your own dental surgery or booking a leeching in a back alley clinic. User beware!

*Chapped lips. This is my favorite ER diagnosis ever.  Someone actually came into a hospital seeking care for this.  Seeing it in writing, up there on the patient information board, made me laugh and was an “aha moment”—people are crazy, and either don’t know how much an ER visit costs, or don’t care.  Maybe he should have googled “chapped lips” first, or called Kip to bring his chapstick to school….

 
It’s All in the Transition

It’s All in the Transition

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I listen to heart monitor alarms all day long at work.  My mind must be constantly alert and listening subconsciously for these (which can be life-saving) along with patient call bells, patient screams, code blue announcements, my work cell phone, my personal cell phone, the unit landline, and whatever else is going on.

By the time I get home my ears and brain are fried, but a new set of noises starts. The exhaust fan is on over the stove. The TV or computer might be blaring. I am immediately bombarded by the insistent requests of my family who has been awaiting my return, with homework and dinner and school papers and wanting to talk about their days. I am excited to see them too, but I am overwhelmed by the sounds and busyness.  My mind is still in fight or flight mode, but needs to be in nest and rest mode.  I want transition time.

Usually I get off work late, sometimes after 8pm, and I want to make every moment count before we put the kids to bed and eventually collapse.  But it’s just not that easy.  I feel the need to first wash the aura of other people’s feces and disease off my body.  I want to reset my brain to stop being hyper alert. In the meantime I only have one foot in the door and the rest of me is distracted and crabby.

I have started taking 15 minutes to shower and decompress in silence every evening before trying to focus on my kids—and it does wonders. Everyone in my house now knows to let me do this.  I go straight upstairs to rinse the workday away before they tug on my shirt and ask me to look at something or do something. Until I shift gears from work to home I can’t really be myself and relax.

I also have a hard time with the following transitions:

  1. Waking up…to doing something productive in the morning on my days off
  2. Getting out of the house…to exercise in a timely manner
  3. Being busy…to slowing down and going to sleep
  4. Focusing on my kids…to taking time for my romantic relationship

Transitions are important but don’t get enough attention. People don’t usually budget time for crossing the delta between activities that require different brain cells and a change in skill set. Taking a moment to properly reset can lower stress and increase productivity. It allows for less distraction and more intensity in the now.

Planning for transitions can also set limits on mindlessness.  (Such as 2 hr Facebook/gaming/YouTube time sucks!)  Repeated, lengthy devotion to mind-numbing activities is attractive when we feel overloaded by real life and need to escape it. If we respect transition time and use it wisely we can reduce the need to mentally check out as a coping mechanism.

The best way to get from one activity to another is to first acknowledge that a shift is needed, and then decide what is important for you to be successful in the next phase.

Transitions can include:

  • A quiet, still moment to reset
  • Time to get ideas or to-dos written or typed for later
  • Planning for the next day
  • A physical move from one location to the next
  • A change in uniform
  • Optimizing your environment
    • Staging or lining up your tools
    • Cleaning up
  • Setting the tone with music or lighting
  • A change in audience and attitude
  • A signal to focus on the next thing (such as an alarm or timer)
  • An internal pep talk to get yourself psyched
  • Anything that clears your mind and gives you peace

Transitioning can mean calming down. It can also mean gearing up, getting focused, planning, or stopping in a good spot.  It requires mindfulness and awareness and takes time to make a habit of.

Wearing too many hats at once makes for a very heavy head. Chin up!

Too many hats makes for a very heavy head. Chin up! Only one hat at a time for a successful daily transition.

*Drawing with a mouse is like eating with a plastic spork or getting dressed in the dark…it can be done, but it is far from ideal.
Multitasking Can Burn You

Multitasking Can Burn You

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Multitasking fails I have experienced include:

  • Trying to express breast milk with an electric pump and a “hands free” bra at the wheel of my car while driving home from work.

Result: very erratic driving, crying over spilt milk, and a sense of incompetence.

  • Attempting to barbecue chicken legs while gardening and talking on the phone in my underwear.

Result: let’s just say chicken fat can easily catch fire and only idiots don’t wear pants around flaming grease. Or unattended garden rakes.

  • Trying to cram for college finals while karaoke-ing in the smoky lounge of a Chinese restaurant.

Result: Crab Rangoons and hang over…successful. Calculus test and John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”…not as successful.

  • Conducting business phone calls while jogging and trying to spend quality yak yak time with my sister.

Result: accidentally leaving a lengthy, inappropriate message on my boss’ voicemail regarding my views on testosterone supplements.

I don’t know who I think I am most of the time, but it’s someone who can handle her shit a little easier. I am constantly overestimating my ability to pay adequate attention to multiple things at once. That’s probably why I have mucho responsibility yet a nagging feeling of underachievement.

Here’s the result of a recent decision to argue on speaker phone with my insurance company while mentally planning a party menu, sweating in the backseat of my car, and trying to console a crying baby:

A lonely piece of chocolate in the box after a multitasking fail
(Artist’s rendering. And when I say “artist” I mean someone else who has time to take photographs of things I need to talk about.)

I was also eating a piece of candy, but looked down to realize I had devoured nearly the entire box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. For a second I was confused since I really didn’t remember eating that many. “Wait a minute…who the hell took my chocolates?” Oh. I guess I did it.

Multitasking can be dangerous, I tell you! According to brainfacts.org, the human mind can only handle two tasks at once; any more than that is overload. Even with just 2 tasks going the brain must split its resources to get them done, so switching between these tasks costs us in performance. As we age this gets even worse.

Piling multiple things on your plate all at once can make you feel efficient, but you probably aren’t. To show up and knowingly do a half-assed job is just irresponsible, so why set yourself up ahead of time for failure?

Divided attention is bad for us, especially when we are:

  1. Driving or operating tools

Obviously you could kill yourself or other people. So put down the Rubik’s cube while you are working the backhoe, please.

  1. Eating

Mindless snacking or eating on the run is never satisfying and it confuses our bodies. We can either overeat or choose nutrient-poor foods, ultimately depriving ourselves.

  1. Making important decisions

There is a reason we can’t legally sign papers while under the influence. Likewise you should save your heavy thinking for times when you are not distracted.  Because, as when you are intoxicated, part of your brain will be unavailable to process the complexities.

  1. Performing precise tasks

Eye surgeons don’t check Facebook while working and neither should you.

  1. Being present with ourselves or loved ones

It does not count as quality time with your family if you are not actually listening to what they’re saying.  Also, you can’t really get in the zone unless you have purposely eliminated extraneous demands.

So the moral of the story is: stop freakin’ trying to do a bunch of things at once, because basically your brain is not made to be successful at walking and chewing gum at the same time.   Or patting your head while rubbing your stomach.

Not only do we attempt to layer tasks that actually matter; we also ask for unnecessary interruptions.  For most of us the day is structured to welcome things that will sabotage the flow of thought.  The amount of distractions in modern America only add folly to the already intense demands of work and family life, so why not limit them?  How exactly are notifications and commercials useful to your productivity?  Are you pretty much always available to be reached by phone, text, email, and social media?

The main reason I have such issues with doing too much at once is assigning similar priority to each task, instead of eliminating or delaying others to focus on the most important one.  When I plan ahead I can easily see what is important and what’s not, but when I’m reacting or already running crazy the logic is more elusive.  Every single little busy thing just isn’t THAT important, not even barbecued chicken, compared to my well-being and relationships.

Trying to do only one thing at a time might make me feel like I’m not doing enough, but if I nail it—if I get it right—it should be more rewarding.  I would rather have one complete success than a bunch of mediocre finishes or downright failures.  In the end I should be getting more out of life if I simply give my brain enough space to work.  Important people and processes deserve my full presence, pants or no pants.

“Life ain’t nothin’ but a funny funny riddle.” —-John Denver

These folks have their arms in the air, shaking a wenis for some we-ness
Shake Your Wenis for Some WE-ness!

Shake Your Wenis for Some WE-ness!

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At my son’s football game today I found myself getting a little worked up.  The refs had made a call that displeased the other team, and the families across the field in the home stands were livid. The sound of “those people” booing and carrying on made my stomach churn.  My heart started beating faster and for a moment I felt genuine rage.  I wanted to yell and tell them to go straight to heck and get bent.  “Go eat a bad hot dog from your sorry concession stand, assholes!  Who the fuck sells Twizzlers instead of Red Vines?”  So there!

I stopped before I could get ejected or at least make a minor fool of myself in front of a bunch of kids.  I remembered that this was the kids’ game, not mine, and that the stakes on the outcome of the call, the game, the season were so very tame.  No one was going to die over this, and it wasn’t really my battle to fight.  There is no “mom” in “team”.  (Unless you call yourself a “team mom”, but that is just a sexist and outdated term so please just stop.)

It wasn’t actually me out on the field taking hits.  My ass was safely planted in the bleachers, somehow taking it all personally.  I do this kind of stuff all the time like a typical human, feeling the “we-ness” of situations that I am not directly involved in.

In Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens he explains how humans do this, where we see ourselves as connected with others in idea, not only in practice, and that’s part of how we are able to organize as one with large groups, even if we’ve never met.  We are animals of ideological habit.  It has helped us survive and take over the world (for better or worse).

Then we create us-and-them situations, like those in a sporting competition, to define who we are by what groups we identify with, as well as those we don’t.  We must belong somewhere!  We must defend our somewheres and our somebodies!  Oh, and we shouldn’t probably fraternize or sympathize with the otherbodies.

The problem with these ideological memberships is that we feel so connected or repulsed that we let things stress us out, no matter the true impact on our lives.  In addition to being a sideline schmuck, you may have also gotten upset about:

  1. Someone being voted off or killed off a tv show
  2. The romantic problems, political views, or evening wear of celebrities
  3. The everyday mundanely controversial social media comments of friends of friends
  4. The death, crime, war, and abominations in countries that are worlds away from your home that you have never and will never visit
  5. The depressing mess on the evening news, featuring dramas and people who you don’t actually know and will never meet

I am not going to advocate for the abject ignorance of horrors affecting people we don’t know, but I do think that healthy living requires a stress budget.  So how much can we devote to things outside our reach of influence?

Most of my life I have tried to keep unnecessary we-ness from invading all of my conscious thoughts.  I don’t really watch the evening news.  (Unless I’m just trying to find eye candy: I’m talking to YOU, Lester Holt! And when I say “eye candy” I mean his glasses, obviously, since they are delicious.)  I don’t have a personal Facebook account, and I try to invest my emotions into people and causes I know and love.  But I do have these moments where I can’t help but get caught up in the Right-Fight.

There are signs that your we-ness may be misguided or could be getting in the way of your happiness:

  1. Spending time impulsively checking notifications or browsing your newsfeed instead of interacting with people you love or doing things that actually matter to you. You fear you won’t “know what’s going on.”
  2. Complaining on a daily basis about the affairs of politics at home or abroad but don’t actually vote or put time or money toward causes you care about.
  3. You know the roster for your favorite team but can’t name your child’s teacher. Or, you have the channel numbers memorized for the networks you watch but not your Mom’s birthday.
  4. There isn’t time to exercise or cook your own meals but you somehow find time to stream videos and post pictures of restaurant food.
  5. You know details about the president of Russia, or the leader of North Korea, but don’t know much about your town’s mayor, if you remember their name at all.

The solution to a misappropriated we-ness is not that hard to figure out. You just have to make real connections the point of your life and put yourself out there to actually take the hits on the field.  Give your attention to the real world in front of you and the people you know best. Get out of the safety net of virtual or remote drama and take on real challenges.

Taking the weight of the world on your shoulders is unnecessary, especially if that weight is made up of things you really can’t change or control.  Stress for the sake of stress is our way of avoiding real risks, but that just keeps us disconnected and wastes our energy and talents.

To sit in the stands and watch with an angry face is simply not enough.  I need to use my we-ness to change the world!   Or at least to focus on cheering my team on toward victory.

*I found out what a wenis was by actually spending time with my tween son instead of scrolling on my phone.  Now I am self-conscious about my sagging wenis, so maybe it has backfired.
3 Pieces of Valuable Garbage

3 Pieces of Valuable Garbage

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I was raised in what most people would call a hoarder house.  My parents had problems getting rid of things, which made for a challenging environment to grow up in, and it shaped how I feel about my own house now.  Although I am not a hoarder in the traditional sense I am keenly aware of hang-ups I have about sorting and discarding items.  They say that people with hoarding tendencies are creative thinkers and can come up with multiple uses for items.  But the reason for keeping things goes beyond that, and anyone who has anything in their house is keeping it for a reason—reasons that can be personal and linked to our deepest fears.

Human beings flat out DO NOT need the amount of stuff we have in a typical American home, and anyone who says they NEED everything in their possession is probably stretching the truth.  I know homeless people who have a discretionary thing or two in their backpacks.  When we decide to keep something (rationally or not), the root reason generally falls into one or more of these main categories:

  1. Assuaging guilt

  2. Preventing loss (avoiding fear)

  3. Keeping connections with people

The associations between objects and our psyche can be easy to ignore most of the time, are not conscious decisions, and we would rather not think about loneliness when buying a hat or shopping for a new blender.  Deep fears shape our buying/acquisition decisions as well as our discarding decisions.  If you keep asking “why” to yourself on these things you might arrive at the root causes of owning your stuff.

Let me show you 3 items that most people would consider garbage that I have kept in my house (and my reasons for keeping them):

  1. Old Bread Tie

stopping food waste

Why: it can be used to help save food.

Why: sometimes I need to save food, and I don’t want to waste.

Why: it is irresponsible to waste food, and I need a lot of food to feed my big family.

Why: I don’t want my kids to be hungry like I was when I was a kid.

I feel guilty if I waste and I fear hunger for myself and family.  I don’t want my family to hate me for not providing for them.

  1. Plastic Grocery Bag

Why: it can be reused to line small garbage cans or brought in for recycling.

Why: it can help me get rid of garbage in my house and I would never just throw it away by itself.

Why: I have too much garbage in my house, but I can’t just throw away useful or recyclable items.

I fear having a messy house and being like my parents.  I feel very guilty about throwing away recyclables since I am a wasteful, privileged American, but when I don’t take these in they pile up.  I also feel guilty that I did not remember to bring reusable bags to the grocery store—I’m so stupid!  Why can’t I remember?!! I don’t want to be the kind of person who kills the earth.

  1. Lone Sock

Why: maybe I will find its mate, and these are expensive compression socks I use for work.  I feel wrong throwing it away.

Why: I will be very upset if I throw it away and I find the other one later—it’s like making a mistake.  I also need compression socks to work comfortably on my feet for 13 hours.

Making mistakes is not being perfect, and I fear not being perfect.  I feel guilty about not being organized enough to find my socks, and this is failure.  I feel guilty about wasting money if I throw expensive socks away.  I want to be comfortable at work so I can take care of myself and best provide for my family, and they will love me forever and ever and ever…and ever.

I could go deeper, and on and on about my garbage, but you get the point.  In doing this exercise with enough items in my house I am able to see patterns in my stuff, and the chips on my shoulder.  Basically I am afraid of being a poor, stupid, irresponsible, hungry hoarder whose family does not love her.  I feel guilty over the privilege and affluence I have gained as a middle class American.  And I am constantly afraid of not being perfect, of making the wrong choice, which perpetuates the irony of my decisions.  In avoiding the wrong decision I am refusing to make decisions.  In trying to not keep garbage I am keeping garbage.

The skeletons in my closet are actually the skeletons in my closet, collecting dust. If you pile up enough skeletons you have a mass grave, so bury those skeletons deep enough that you forget you have murdered anyone.  (Just kidding—burn those skeletons and scatter their ashes about town to hide the evidence.)  Or, at least think regularly about why they exist in the first place.
Ideas For a Day Well Spent

Ideas For a Day Well Spent

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Sitting in a hammock, slowly rocking beneath rustling leaves. Feeling warm sand squish between my toes. Napping with my kids on the big couch after binge watching comedies. Eating lunch at a noodle shop and running the track with my sister. These all sound like good ways to spend an afternoon.

My days off are usually packed with appointments and grocery shopping and housework and homework. It’s summer now, and I want to squeeze every bit of sunshine and joy out of my days. My kids haven’t been off school for a week and I am already finding ways to not clean, excuses to not cook the food I’ve bought, and reasons to generally slack about my house wearing no bra and cut off sweat shorts.

Days come and go without a feeling of doing what I really want to. Either I feel guilty about unaccomplished burdensome tasks, or I feel a loss over not doing all the great, fun, exciting, relaxing, or productive things I tell myself I’m going to. The summer is short, and so is life.  I recently lost a beloved Auntie, and I think about what she was doing in her last days, and if she was content.

If you were to ask me how I would want to spend my last living days, they would include the following:

  1. People I love
  2. Laughter
  3. Good food
  4. Good conversation
  5. Moments of flow
  6. Flights of creativity
  7. Reflection
  8. Comfort

Occasionally I will have a really awesome day, where the burdens of worry seem to be locked away in a dungeon and I am never caught looking over my shoulder. I get swept up in doing, in being. I get focused on who I’m with and not where I’m supposed to be going or prepping for the next item on the docket. More days should be awesome days.
Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Food Stories

Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Food Stories

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I have been intermittently tracking Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Foods—trying to pay more attention to what I eat, recognizing food experiences that are worth it in terms of calories, taste, and enjoyability.  On the flip side, I am trying to stop myself from making eating decisions that are not worth it to me and make me feel bad in the short and long term.  Here are some of the things I have eaten:

Not worth it

  • Horrible (work meeting fare) grocery store doughnut with chemical aftertaste
  • Reheated old stale Belgian waffle found in back of my fridge on a busy morning
  • Sonic drive in chicken sandwich with soggy bun and limp lettuce, eaten in the car before grocery shopping
  • Carl’s Jr. “salad” with $5.49 of iceberg lettuce—what a rip off
  • Hard salt water taffy (couldn’t tell you what flavor) at my desk from the community candy bowl
  • Boring pizza, even ate the crust nubs, in my underwear while sitting on the family room rug

Worth it

  • Half of a buttery croissant with raspberry jam on a sunny lunch out with friends
  • Fresh berries and spinach from my garden, from ground to mouth
  • Corn on the cob at dinner with my kids
  • The Hubs’ homemade clam chowder with bacon, made with fear that we wouldn’t like it (and also with love!)
  • Smoked pork butt, on a lazy group camping weekend, along with delicious potluck samplings
  • Vanilla ice cream with coconut cookie crumbs in the quiet dark of my kitchen, kids tucked in and asleep
  • A tall glass of iced tea with lemon—the same drink my mom always likes
  • Chicken enchiladas verdes at my kitchen table, in a late but hearty home-cooked meal

Most of my not-worth-it experiences happened when I felt rushed and unprepared. Or when I felt desperate to not taste the inside of my mouth after hours of work dehydration. When I make food an afterthought I also make myself insignificant, worrying more about completing tasks or shoving more plans into my day. The more panicked and overworked I am the more I feel like junk and eat like junk.

Worth-it foods happen when I am relaxing with my family and friends, or savoring a snack in a peaceful moment alone with the sun of my backyard.  If I am in a good place the experience tends to come out positive. The contented feelings already in progress contribute to what I decide to eat and how I enjoy the food.

This exercise has made me reevaluate how I judge my intake.  Foods never stand alone, but instead are part of a story.  So much of popular good/bad food rhetoric is shaped by nutritional science and hard to follow rules.  But when it comes down to it we are shaping our own sagas, with food as a supporting cast.  What we eat is a byproduct of how we live.  I am in charge of my own story, so I should worry less about what I eat and instead think more about creating a happy and satisfying life in general—good choices should follow.

 
Spacing It

Spacing It

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I am sitting in the waiting room at the oral surgeon right now and I feel lucky. Lucky that they will be removing the heinous tumor between my front teeth that now feels like a tiny parasitic twin that’s sucking the life out of me and making it so I have to cut strawberries* with a knife and fork to eat them. I feel grateful because I actually showed up late–like 30 minutes so–when I spaced the true appointment time (and thought I was showing up early). They could’ve sent me packing to wait yet another month in this 7 month saga, but they didn’t and I’m hoping for a hole in the schedule so I can get this done.

The troubling thing is this: it is the THIRD time in the last few months that I have spaced something important. Although I am the kind of person who walks in late to meetings and parties, I am usually fully aware of my tardiness. But this is different. I keep surprising myself with these irresponsible moments of remembering wrong. The first infraction was accidentally skipping out on a day-long mandatory class for work. The second was showing up very late for my nephew’s birthday party, so late that we only made it in time to eat cake before the venue kicked the kids out of the party room and my children cried because they didn’t get to enjoy the bouncy houses with their cousins.

This is not like me. Besides my usual “island time” tardiness I am actually a dependable person, showing up basically when I say I will. I do this despite juggling the schedules of a full time manager, a mother of 6, and an individual who tries to make time for people who matter. Frankly I am worried about my behavior and the impact this spaciness might have on my life. What if I forget something even more important, like leaving my baby in the car or do something dangerous to a patient at work? Fear is making my heart rate go up as I type in this plastic chair, sitting amongst calm people who made it on time today.

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What Reminds You of Your Real Goals?

What Reminds You of Your Real Goals?

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I often lose sight of what I really want.  It is easy to get caught up in things that don’t really matter, distractions and avoidances that help dilute the sting of failure when trying to reach a goal.  Sometimes those coping mechanisms are in direct opposition to my true desires.

I can get depressed or bored thinking about my health problems and it makes me want a Monte Cristo sandwich or something fried dipped in ranch dressing.  It is no secret that I have overeating tendencies and I also have what I like to refer to as “blood sugar issues”.   Hyperglycemia can lead to so many poor outcomes.  I am fully aware of how losing one’s eyesight, kidneys, or legs can be devastating to quality of life. I have personally wrapped the stumps of newly amputated legs of diabetic patients. And then watched the patients call their families and friends to sneak them thick stacks of tortillas or a 2 liter of cola. Even when loss is fresh, and literally painful, old habits die hard.

I have considered tattooing the likeness of my kidney or heart on my arm as a reminder that what I eat might take those things from me someday. It is damn hard to keep motivation going, to keep goals and realities at the forefront of my thoughts, intentions, and actions.  Ultimately it is my desire to live a long and healthy life.  To spend as much time as possible with people I love doing things I enjoy.  In order to do those things I need my organs and my ability to walk, to see.  So why can’t I be honest with myself when I binge eat a cake, that I am sorta killing myself in shortened life or functionality?  The ideal would be to preserve my health, not squander it foolishly.

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Peer Into the Kaleidoscope